Gently with the Innocents (12 page)

‘A bag?’

‘’S what he said.’

‘Tha’s right, mister,’ Moosh corroborated. ‘Only I reckon Pills was making that up.’

‘Course he was,’ Dinno said. ‘He’s a lying gyppo.’

They stared righteously at Gently, that high-ranking punisher of untruths.

‘Still, I expect you talked about it,’ Gently smiled.

Again Moosh looked at Dinno for a cue.

‘S’pose we did,’ Dinno said carelessly. ‘Only we knew about the gold. Always.’

‘But you were only guessing before,’ Gently said. ‘Now you knew old Peachey had it.’

‘We always knew.’

‘But now one of you had seen it.’

Dinno worked some heel-marks in the snow.

‘P’raps we kidded about it,’ he said. ‘Might’ve kidded a few people.’

‘Kidded them how?’

Dinno gazed at the heel-marks. ‘You know. Let on we’d seen old Peachey counting it.’

‘And you had seen him?’

Dinno kept his heel stabbing. None of the others were making a sound.

‘Just kidding,’ Dinno said. ‘Like we’d been watching him, seen him do it.’

‘Watching through a window?’

‘That’s what we said.’

‘Which window did you watch through?’

‘We didn’t. Not really.’

‘Which window did you say?’

Dinno came down heavily. ‘Just one at the back.’

Gently puffed. ‘I see,’ he said. Nobody was looking at him now. Most had their eyes fixed on the snow, a few stared vacuously about the sale-ground. Dinno’s heel went on chopping out crescents, one placed close to another.

‘This would be in the evening, wouldn’t it?’ Gently said.

‘’S what we told people,’ Dinno said.

‘You’d have been playing round the warehouse,’ Gently said. ‘You can see the back of the house from there. Of course there’s a wall. How did you see over it?’

‘You can see over it,’ Dinno said.

‘Not unless you stood on something.’

‘Well . . . there’s them old boxes,’ Dinno said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Gently said. ‘I remember. So you stood on the boxes and looked over. You’d be looking straight at that funny little window, the one all criss-crossed with bits of lead. But wouldn’t old Peachey have drawn the curtains?’

‘He ain’t got no curtains at the back,’ Dinno said.

‘No curtains?’

Dinno dragged his heel.

‘Tha’s right, mister,’ Moosh said. ‘You can look straight in there.’

Gently nodded and smiled. ‘Quite right. None of the back windows have curtains. And of course, it would be dark, so old Peachey would’ve had a light.’

‘He’s got an old hurricane,’ Moosh said.

Dinno scuffed at the snow angrily.

‘Well, you could see it,’ Moosh said. ‘On the table.’

‘We seen him have a hurricane,’ Dinno said. ‘A hurricane.’

Gently puffed peaceably, letting smoke go in regular measures. At last Dinno stared up at him. He flinched a little, but held his gaze.

‘How many of you were watching?’ Gently asked.

Dinno didn’t answer immediately. His hands were busy in his pockets again, working silently, two animals.

Moosh and the rest, following their leader, had also turned their eyes back to Gently. Like anxious birds they gazed at his face, helpless, mouths pulling apart.

‘Me and Moosh. Goggy. Ringo. We all got up to have a look.’

‘Who else was there?’

‘Just us lot.’

‘Who was in the yard?’

He hesitated. ‘Nobody.’

‘Tell me what you saw.’

‘Old Peachey.’ Dinno was staring very hard. ‘He’d got his gold out. You could see it. He was having a gloat over his gold. Sort of a flat box thing that was in, we saw him putting it on the table. Then he was picking it up, gloating over it, holding it up near the light.’

‘You could see what it was?’

‘Course we could. It was a lot of gold coins.’

‘A lot?’

‘Ever so many, mister.’

‘More than two?’

‘Coo! More like a hundred.’

Gently looked round the group. ‘Is this what you all saw?’

There was a murmur of assent.

‘And what you were telling people you saw?’

They shuffled, their eyes drooping.

Gently let his pipe work again. Dinno’s eyes were still on him. Brown, steady eyes. Eyes that didn’t give much away. Gently grinned at him suddenly.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘When was all this?’

‘Don’t know what date, mister,’ Dinno said. ‘Reckon it was just before old Peachey was murdered.’

‘It’s important,’ Gently said. ‘See if you can remember. Was there a truck or something in the yard?’

‘There was a big old van thing,’ Moosh said. ‘They come out afterwards and drove it off.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘Well, that was afterwards. After old Peachey put his light out.’

‘It was a big old green van,’ Dinno said. He wriggled his boot into the snow.

‘So they’d been unloading?’

Dinno said nothing.

‘And there was a light on in the office?’

‘Yeh,’ Moosh said. ‘There was a light, mister. I reckon old Cokey was in there somewhere.’

Dinno kicked snow. ‘But we never see him.’ He stared at a spot below Gently’s chin. ‘But he could’ve been looking out, mister. He could’ve seen old Peachey too.’

‘He couldn’t see what you saw,’ Gently said.

‘He could’ve seen,’ Dinno said.

‘And he could’ve been told,’ Gently said. ‘Isn’t that what happened after the van left?’

Moosh hung his head. Dinno stayed composed. He negligently swung at some more snow.

‘P’raps,’ he said. ‘P’raps we kidded him. We’re always kidding old Cokey.’

‘I think he came out and questioned you.’

‘He might’ve come out.’

‘Suppose you tell me,’ Gently said.

‘All right,’ Dinno said, his leg swinging. ‘Suppose he come out and we told him.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Wasn’t nothing happened. Old Cokey got up to have a look.’

‘He dint see nothing though,’ Moosh said.

‘We packed it in, went home,’ Dinno said.

Gently paused, still grinning. ‘And the next night?’ he said softly.

Moosh’s eyes swung up, goggling. Dinno’s eyes didn’t waver.

‘We wasn’t playing round there the next night.’

‘Sure?’

‘Course.’ Dinno sounded indignant.

‘You weren’t there, didn’t see Colkett?’

‘I’m telling you, mister. We went up the Sloes.’

‘All of you?’ Gently looked around. Nobody felt like meeting his eye.

‘Tha’s right, mister,’ Moosh whined. ‘We was up the Sloes along with some girls.’

‘A pity,’ Gently said.

Dinno ground his heel in. ‘But he done it, mister. We know he done it.’ He looked a little wistful. ‘You ain’t kidding us, mister – you hant got him locked away all the time?’

‘I’m not kidding you,’ Gently said. ‘I’m just wondering if you’re kidding me.’

Dinno’s eyes stared. ‘We couldn’t kid you, mister.’

‘No,’ Gently smiled. ‘Not for long.’

A whistle throbbed thinly. They started, colt-like, every head turned to the sound.

‘Mister . . .’

Gently nodded. Then they were running. Not even Dinno had another glance for him.

Gently stood some moments longer, sucking now on a pipe gone cold; then turned and plodded out of the sale-ground and crossed the road to the warehouse.

There was still no light. He cupped his hands at the window. The dim office looked chill and drear. He went to the door and silently tried it. Locked. Nobody at home.

T
HE SNOW HADN’T
really given up; by afternoon it was starting again – big, feathery, sauntering flakes that clung to one’s clothes and laid quickly. You could see it teeming down from the clouds, racing when the wind caught it. Snow-gloom pressed on the little town. Already it had a cut-off feeling.

At the George Gently met the stringer, who sat playing patience in the hall lounge. He looked up hopefully when Gently entered, an elderly man with a sad, lined face.

‘Anything for us, sir?’

Gently hadn’t, but he felt sorry for the stringer and paused to chat with him. His name was Wemys. In the end, Gently fudged him up a plausible non-statement.

Not much, after twenty-four hours on the case!

Gently went into lunch broodingly. Apart from the medal they had no concrete evidence – and the medal itself was evidence of what? For the rest, surmise, suggestive circumstance and the dubious witness of children. Perhaps enough now to throw at Colkett, but not nearly enough if he failed to confess.

Frowningly, Gently cut short his lunch. Soon, they’d be waiting for the breaks. The case was depending too much on Colkett – somehow, it needed opening up. He rang the station. Gissing was out. D.C. Scoles had nothing to report. Leaving the Sceptre in the courtyard, Gently plunged out in the snow again.

In Playford Road, off Water Street, he found the greengrocer’s, Hallet’s. It was open-fronted and looking miserable with snow collecting on the stacked vegetables. A woman minded it. She was stout and freckled and wore a shabby coat over layers of sweaters. There were no customers. She gazed at the snow with a sort of meditative spite.

‘Mrs Hallet?’

‘That’s me.’

‘Police. I want a word with your lodger.’

‘Him.’ She sounded withering. ‘He’s up at the warehouse. Won’t be in till half five.’

‘You haven’t seen him?’

‘Not since breakfast. If he’s been back I haven’t noticed.’

‘Which are his rooms?’

‘Over the top here. There’s some stairs round the corner.’

They were iron stairs, running from a yard to a small landing at first-floor level. Snow lay virgin on the treads. Nobody answered Gently’s knock.

‘Told you so.’ Mrs Hallet had waddled out to watch Gently. ‘Up at the warehouse is where you’ll find him. You know the warehouse?’

‘I know it.’

She didn’t ask him what Colkett had done, simply stared as he trudged away.

But she was a liar. Colkett wasn’t at the warehouse, and snow covered the tracks leading to the door. Clearly he hadn’t returned since he left while Gently and Bressingham were searching Harrisons. So where was he? Holed-up at some friend’s? It wasn’t a day to be tramping around. Had Gently scared him so much that morning that he’d decided to make himself scarce?

Gently shrugged grumpily, standing ankle-deep in the darkening yard with the white flakes whirling. Harrisons, the warehouse, both deserted; only the wind to make a little moan.

He went down the passage, where the snow was thinner, and emerged in Thingoe Road. This was livelier. A few cars were passing, their tyre-sound muffled, wipers sweeping. Almost opposite the passage was the general shop where Peachment had bought the box of matches. Its windows glowed yellowy against the snow and were filled untidily with tins and cut-outs.

Gently crossed over and entered the shop. It smelled of soap and dog-biscuits. Behind the counter a neat, grey-haired man was checking groceries into a carton. A couple of shelves were stocked with cigarettes and a few cheap brands of tobacco; below them, a shelf of matches. A sign said:
Aladdin Pink.

‘Police.’

The man glanced at Gently but went on checking, his lips moving. Then he scribbled on a piece of paper and stuck the pencil behind his ear.

‘Yes? I’m a little deaf.’

To establish an entente, Gently bought tobacco. The grocer’s name was Wix. He went through his story readily enough.

‘What makes you remember Mr Peachment coming in?’

‘Well, you see, it was the last time. The next I heard they’d found the body – rather upset me, that did.’

‘Was that the next day?’

‘I can’t be certain. I wouldn’t want to tell you a lie.’

‘The 27th was a Thursday.’

‘Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those are the nights I stay open.’

Gently put his questions slowly, giving Wix time to think. Almost certainly Wix had been the last but one to see Peachment alive.

‘Did Mr Peachment often come in of an evening?’

‘Well, now and then. When he wanted something.’

‘I’d like you to tell me about that last time. Everything that happened, what was said.’

Wix did his best. He stared at the door, imagining Peachment coming in, then his shuffle up to the counter, his mutter, his request for the box of matches. It signified nothing. It was such a transaction as might have happened any time over the years. Nothing to say, when the doorbell pinged, that never again would it ping for old Peachment.

‘Were there other customers in the shop?’

Wix shook his head. ‘Not as I remember it.’

‘Do you know Colkett from the warehouse?’

‘I know him.’

‘Did you see him that night?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Who else was about here?’

‘Well . . . customers. They come from the council estate mostly.’

‘Kids?’

‘Always plenty of them.’

‘But do you remember them?’

Wix shook his head.

And, of course, the tobacco would be dry and unsmokable: Gently could tell it by the feel of the packet.

He left the shop and set himself doggedly to plod the length of Thingoe Road. Setting Colkett aside, this was the likeliest area from which Peachment’s killer might have come. Gently had studied a map; the foot-way and Frenze Street offered a short cut to the town centre; and Peachment, Gently was certain, had known his killer by sight – as he would have known the regulars from Thingoe Road.

A long, a dreary road! The Council had widened it before they built. One side were huddled old town houses, facing them the bastilles of Council terraces. Regular culs-de-sac divided the terraces, bearing names like Councillor Bunwell Close and Hotblack Grove; in the dark and the snow the estate wore the aspect of a Siberian penal settlement. No wonder the kids played in the sale-ground, or got their kicks cheeking old Cokey.

On the town side many of the properties were doubtless marked for demolition. Adjacent to the warehouse was a terrace of cottages, their windows boarded, crosses painted on the doors. Gently crunched across to examine them more closely. They probably backed on the garden of Harrisons. Something possible there? He eyed their blankness for a moment, then hunched his shoulders and turned away.